Pristine, page 13
As he inhaled the flowery scent in the air, which reminded him of his vague angel, the worrying thoughts drifted away.
Okoi tried opening his eyes again, and it didn’t hurt so much this time. He could see the sun peeking through the thick branches and leaves above him. Birds chirped cheerily in the trees, brightly coloured butterflies flitted from flower to flower. Indeed, paradise was as beautiful as the missionaries had described—for once, the white man hadn’t lied.
However, the same thought occurred to him: if he was in paradise, why was he still bound? According to the missionaries, when one dies and gets to paradise, their soul is released and free to float about just like the angels. Okoi was very aware he was still partly bound like he’d been at the dark, evil clearing.
Curiously, he turned his body, which meant he used his free legs, wedged them at the edge of the water and pushed, flipping to the right. His eyes immediately settled on no other but his angel. He knew this because he would recognize that hair and skin anyway, and…
He swallowed with difficulty. His lower body instantly came to life as his eyes carefully took in the prodigious swell of her voluptuous breasts through the wrapper. He noticed the obvious smoothness of her skin that was like that of a white baby’s and the thick softness of her hair, how the heavy braid drooped over her shoulder and how tendrils curled on her temple and nape, more beautiful than the most beautiful white woman he’d ever seen.
“Angel,” he whispered.
At least, he’d hoped to whisper, but it unfortunately came out as a croak, a terrible sound caused by the dryness of his throat. It instantly woke the angel, putting fear in her…curiously coloured eyes. Her eyes were like the colour of the sky on a beautiful morning. He grinned at her.
***
Nnanke gasped the moment she woke and scooted backwards on her buttocks while her eyes stayed on the handsome man of her dreams. She wondered how he had gotten to the riverbank with his bound limbs. Nevertheless, she was glad to see the scars that had marred his skin the previous night had cleared.
Her brow furrowed at the sounds coming from his throat, and belatedly, she saw he was smiling while his eyes focused on a spot below her knees. Nnanke wondered what would capture his attention so and followed his dazed gaze, looking down. She gasped when she saw that he was staring fixedly at her secret place.
She scrambled to her feet in a feat of embarrassment more than anger and grabbed the small satchel of dust from her bosom, pinched a bit of dust from it, then blew it in his face.
With a hammering heart, she watched as the handsome man’s head dropped easily. He fainted with a smile on his face.
***
When Okoi came awake again, he was glad to find a broken gourd filled with water placed conspicuously close to his head. With some effort, he twisted and manoeuvred his still bound body until he could slurp the deliciously cool water into his parched throat.
With his thirst partially quenched, he lifted his eyes a bit and found a bunch of ripe, red berries lying close. Crudely, he jostled his body again and was soon devouring the sweet, juicy fruit.
After feeding like an animal, he fell back and belched, chuckling at the satisfyingly loud sound.
“Now, I loosen these ropes,” he muttered while twisting with some effort to get the ropes off.
“You’re a man with no honour for…for looking at my…my…”
Okoi heard the irate female’s voice stammering in a strange language that vaguely sounded like the cannibal tribe—he sincerely hoped it wasn’t.
He immediately bent his heard awkwardly, rewarded with the upside-down sight of his angel. He couldn’t sustain the position for long as his neck hurt. So, he used his legs again, crab-walking sideways until he faced her, leaning his back on the trunk of a tree not very far from the river. Apparently, the angry woman with the strange language had pulled him from the water. But why was she furious?
“Please, help loosen these ropes?” he asked in clear English and worried when his angel cocked her head to the side with a confused frown.
Okoi shook his head in disappointment. Even in paradise, he still had rotten luck as he’d ended up paired with an angel who spoke a different language, and somebody had clearly forgotten to release him.
His gaze left her lovely face to scan the thick forest with no other person in sight. He breathed another sigh of frustration before turning to the English-impaired angel, which was weird because the missionaries had explained angels understood all languages.
“Go find someone that understands English or we will go nowhere today,” he grunted in frustration because he couldn’t gesture with his bound hands. He really needed to get these ropes off.
Her brow furrowed more, and then suspicion entered her eyes.
“Are you abusing me in your strange tongue?” Nnanke snapped, because, when she’d dreamt about him, they’d communicated perfectly in Lokạạ, the Atam language.
“You should feel guilty for looking under my wrapper, in between my legs,” she shouted angrily while spreading her legs more and pointing under her wrapper with an accusatory mien.
What is she saying? Okoi wondered, trying to follow her wild gestures that kept ending between her legs.
And just like that, his train of thought shifted from the impossibility of the situation as his eyes travelled over the length of the short woman, appreciating her obvious curves with inherent male interest. Without meaning to, it manifested physically, growing hard and taut as it strained the front of his slightly burnt cotton trousers.
Suffused in embarrassment, Okoi wondered why his body readily reacted to this strange woman when it had taken the white woman—and in fact, all the other women at the plantation he’d had carnal knowledge of—some effort to bring his interest alive.
He cleared his throat and tried to twist so he could hide his unrelenting erection from the angry woman, who kept making signs and speaking in her strange language.
Nnanke noticed the man trying to fold his knees and turn his body from her, but it was difficult with his restraints. She stopped ranting. Her inherent kind nature demanded that she help him, but then her eyes caught the bulge in his strange garb.
She gasped and instinctively wanted to turn away in fury, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the impressive protuberance. Her mother, Ibiang’s first wife, who had picked her in the forest as a baby and nurtured her despite the whole village postulating that she had picked a witch, had explained what the straining bulge in a man’s wrapper meant. Nnanke had caught her father sporting one when he entered his second wife’s hut.
Uben, the warrior who’d been courageous enough to come for her hand in marriage, had also, suddenly, had that same bulge whenever in her presence. Her mother had explained that men had this when they liked a woman and wanted to make babies with her.
A shiver of dread and a tingling of intense pleasure suffused her body and settled warmly in between her legs, in her secret place. She was instantly reminded of the things he had done to her in the dream, and she whimpered, pressing her knees together to take away the sweet ache assailing her secret place. Her nipples became so hard, they felt like sharp stones trying to break out through her wrapper.
Okoi heard her whimper and looked up, catching the look of pure carnal lust on her face. Unconsciously, he replied with an animalistic growl, a sound he’d never made before, his manhood hardening to the point of bursting. If only he could loosen these ropes, he would show her so much pleasure…
But then, the woman rapidly pulled out a small sack from her breast, and he recalled what the substance in that sack had done to him last time. His eyes widened in alarm while he shook his head. “No, no, no! Do not do that. Please…”
Still, the woman blew the pinch of dust at him. Okoi swerved from the direction of the charm but couldn’t escape far. He felt the instant dulling of his senses, the slow weakening of his bones, and the heaviness in his eyelids.
“Stop doing that,” he slurred heavily before slumping against the tree.
***
Nnanke paced the clearing behind her cave as she wondered what to do with the handsome man. It had been two koke, and though she’d managed to go about her usual duties, she was terrified the spirits would reveal the man’s presence to Binah Yakpani and Ekori, and this meant dire significance.
Nonetheless, even with devastating consequences looming, she couldn’t think of letting the man go, which was why she’d refused to loosen his bind. Imagining waking up each morning and not seeing his smiling face the moment she stepped out of her cave made her want to cry in a heart-wrenching manner—quite a strange feeling for her.
If she hadn’t saved him from the evil binah at Umor, she would’ve suspected he’d bewitched her. If he had such powers, he wouldn’t have been caught in the first place and almost burnt to death.
Nnanke had supplicated, whispered praises and ritual sacrifices to the spirits to find out the purpose of the man. Yet, they remained silent on his behalf. However, they were loud and accepting of the praises and sacrifices from the villagers who came in gratitude for fertility in their homes.
It had been a shock to discover a sudden array of raw food baskets, mainly yam and garri, bound goats and chicken, and gourds of palm wine decorating the edge of the spirit forest. So, she had hastened to Binah Yakpani and Ekori, and they had giddily informed her that women were getting pregnant all over the village, so the people of Yakpani were showing their gratitude to the fertility spirit.
Nnanke hadn’t known what to do with that much food, so she’d transported most of it to Binah Yakpani’s hut. She had used some to prepare the spirits’ meal which she’d flung into the spirit river and watched as it duly disappeared, meaning it had been accepted, and the little remaining had been taken to her cave.
She had never worried about her meals. When sacrifices were left at the periphery of the spirit forest, she did the usual, shared some with the binah, cooked for the spirits, and did the ritual flinging into the river and mostly survived on wild fruits.
However, since having the handsome man from her dreams in the forest with her, she had been plagued with the pressing urge to cook elaborate meals that would entice his palate. It was quite strange, the urge to cook for him, and despite his bound hands and the difficulty of eating the fruits she always left for him, he always had a smile for her after feeding.
Like he knew she was watching him from inside her cave and he always shouted one word, ‘tankio,’ whenever he finished eating. Nnanke wondered if that was his name. Her heart palpitated every time she saw his smile, and she usually had the urge to reply whenever he spoke his strange language even though she didn’t understand it.
The forest seemed to have accepted him. At night, the spirits welcomed him, too. She usually found wisps of feathery light cotton on his head in the early hours of the morning when she checked on him. The sight of that immense blessing from the spirits made her breathe easier. If they had accepted him, then he couldn’t be detrimental to her.
Still, she worried.
Though not as much as when she’d discovered that manly bulge below his abdomen. She had thought with him here in the forest he would leave her dreams, but that wasn’t the case—he plagued them even more. His smile was the same. He played with her and spoke Lokạạ fluently. He enticed her. He cared for her so tenderly, it brought tears to her eyes. He held her to his massive muscular chest. He walked with her in the forest with his arm flung lovingly over her shoulders.
Then, still in the dream, he pressed his mouth on hers, a strange act, but then she accepted it because it suffused her body with warmth that made her shift closer to him. His touch burned her skin no matter how feathery. Oh, and then his mouth on her neck, breasts, stomach, and…
Nnanke stopped pacing as her breath hitched once again at the memory of the overwhelming sensations that had woken her up prematurely. Not yet day break, but it was a new day, a long time before the sun’s rising. She was afraid to go back to sleep and experience the dream again. Yet, she was even more terrified that she longed for the man’s touch. Not in the dream, but in real life; she was curious to find out if such intense sensations could actually be possible, especially since her own life, apart from serving the spirits, had been bland so far.
She couldn’t have deep, personal conversations with spirits, and she’d longed for that all her life. Because she’d been born extremely different, her adopted mother had been the only one to bother about her despite her solemn attitude. Nobody had seen she was lonely in her difference, but she hadn’t made it easy on people to know that. Rather, as a defence, she had embraced her uniqueness and had been glad the spirits had finally decided to come for her instead of the bothersome dreams she’d had as a child.
Drinking from the calabash close to where she’d been pacing, Nnanke decided to do something productive since she wasn’t going to find sleep anymore. Determined, she marched from the back of her cave and without meaning to, her legs took her to where the man slept leaning on a tree. He looked uncomfortable with the rope still binding his arms to his body, and she knew how cold the night could get.
Guilt suffused her body, and with the slight brilliance of the moon, she worked on the tight knots until they loosened. She refused to pull the ropes so as not to disturb his sleep. Kneeling close to him, she studied his face and the powerful muscles of his body, and felt the familiar heat that usually came with his touch coursing through her.
It scared her. Instead of running, she reached out tentatively and touched his brow, noticing wisps of cotton in his hair, evidence of the spirits’ favour. So why had he been abandoned to die by fire, she wondered in a small fit of anger. Sometimes, she really did not understand the gods.
She wondered where he’d been and how he’d come to be captured. She had the pressing urge to know everything about him as opposed to her previous passiveness in knowing about other people except spirits. Her indifference had been the reason she’d embraced living in the forest alone; people were generally foolish, and though she liked Binah Yakpani, sometimes, he could be just as foolish as the rest of the village despite his authority as the binah, as the leader.
Her hand drifted from his brow to the shell of his ear, and then down to the strength of his shoulder. She was entirely fascinated by him. She wanted to speak with him, know him, laugh with him. She was tired of hiding her smiles when he smiled at her, tired of wondering what he was saying when he spoke in his strange language. So, she made a decision.
Swiftly getting to her feet, she hurried into the denser part of the forest, feverishly plucking leaves and herbs and digging clay from the spirit river. Instead of returning to her cave, she sat in the forest, found a broken gourd, and began mixing and chanting the portion that would make Tankio understand Lokạạ fluently. She had never cast the spell before, but she was desperate enough to try the incantation Binah Yakpani had described as a myth, mere folklore told by his father’s father before they had left Akpa, the ancestral land.
When she stumbled out of the dense forest, tired after so many efforts to make the potion and not quite sure her end product would be effective, Nnanke was shocked to find Tankio missing.
The loosened ropes were exactly where she’d left him. Looking around, her heart tumbled. Had he decided to flee? The thought brought pinpricks of tears to her eyes, an odd phenomenon since she’d been told she hadn’t cried even as a baby.
Tiredly, with tears blurring her sight, she stumbled down the beaten path to the spirit river, intending to throw her potion into it in anger. Nnanke had to suddenly lean on the trunk of the tree that shaded the low rock she usually sat on close to the river because her heart ached so much, it weakened her limbs.
Panting and sobbing as though her heart had shattered into several irretrievable pieces, she slowly dropped the broken gourd containing the potion and reduced herself onto her rock, folding over and wishing to become smaller in her grief.
Over the sound of her pounding heart and sad sobs, she heard a splash from the river that sounded heavier than the usual bird falling into the water. She looked up in alarm. The sight made her quickly wipe the tears from her eyes to see clearer.
Her heart soared when she saw him swimming in the river with a relaxed joy obvious on his face. Then, her heart lurched in fear because an ordinary man was swimming in the spirit river.
Nnanke got to her feet and rushed to the bank, calling out to him frantically. Binah Yakpani had said that before the forest and the river had been abandoned as the spirits’ dwelling, many men had died just from drinking or bathing in it.
“Tankio! Tankio!” she called and hysterically waved, indicating he should come out of the river. “You cannot bathe in the river! Come out instantly!” she called, her heart hammering in her throat.
Okoi grinned when he saw his angel, his heart instantly more joyous than when he’d woken to find his bindings had been loosened. But then, the smile tapered off when he saw how perturbed she looked. Even at a distance, her eyes seemed swollen and red, like she’d been crying, and she frantically wanted him out of the water. He wondered if that was that had caused her tears.
Still, he hesitated, realizing he would be entirely naked and exposed if he heeded her call. But the tears were threatening to fall again. He hurriedly swam towards her, hesitating only a little before getting to his full height and stepped onto the bank.
The panic and threatening sob squelched in her throat as her eyes bugged over his naked form. Nnanke knew she should look away, but she couldn’t. Words failed her. Not like he would’ve understood her, but it would’ve been right to show some angry reaction at his shamelessness.
Her mouth went instantly dry as her eyes scanned every hard plain and length of him. When she got to below his abdomen, she stopped and couldn’t move. Right before her eyes, his manhood jerked with a life of its own and grew long, swollen, and hard. Her body was instantly attacked. It erupted with tingles that left her weak and her mouth dry like she’d chewed cotton, something she had tried once, unfortunately.
